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A hybrid Atlantic puffin population on the remote Norwegian island of Bjornoya likely arose from the breeding between two subspecies within the past 100 or so years, coinciding with the onset of the 20th-century warming pattern, researchers report in a paper published October 2023 in the journal Science Advances.
Strikingly, the hybridization occurred after a subspecies migrated southward, not poleward toward cooler temperatures, as might have been expected, a finding that highlights the complexity of the changes underway in the Arctic ecosystem.
Additional analysis also shows a significant loss of genetic diversity in the populations studied, an alarming development for the prospective health of Arctic puffins, the researchers write.
“Both the timing of the hybridization as well as the genomic erosion really provide this compelling evidence that the last few years have been tremendously impactful on the Arctic communities,” said Oliver Kersten, the paper’s lead author and a postdoctoral researcher in genomics and marine ecology at the University of Oslo.
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